Joe Rogan: "Wrestling is the most important skill in MMA"

Dr John Smith

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Joe talks about it during the Suarez/Esparza fight:

"All the skills are important, but when you have someone who has a dominant advantage in wrestling, they choose where the fight takes place."

Agree or disagree?
 
If you have to choose one skill-base then yes I agree.
 
Yes, but this is not a novel take.
 
This is pretty much consensually acknowledged at this point.

I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if some new fans started to think of striking that way.
 
A pure striker loses vs a wrestler any day. A wrestler who's got no knowledge of submissions loses to a BJJ guy all day. A striker with good enough takedown defense beats a pure wrestler or a BJJ guy all day.

And so on and so forth.
 
Well, it’s really simplified to put it like that, but yes. I agree.
 
Tank Abbot once said, "Wrestling is the prerequisite to fighting."
 
Yeah I agree. I wish in Australia when I was young we had the Wrestling infrastructure like North America in School/College.
 
This reminds me of when we had to suffer through all those minimally-skilled blobs that just laid on everyone to win. Obviously wrestling is a big component but other skills are needed to be elite.
 
Elite wrestlers are so dominant in MMA that Matt Lindland even knocked himself out
 
No, I disagree. Because it matters how good you are at that skill. If you’re an elite anything you dictate the terms. Khabib is an elite wrestler and he imposes his will. To me Anderson was an elite standup and he dictated those terms. Even though he’s a black belt, very few people took him down and did anything.
 
There are levels to this shit

No defined answer
 
i don't think it's the most important, but it's certainly a skill that should be the base that you build your other skills around. to be honest, there really aren't that many great wrestlers in MMA until to get to the top of food chain in each division. you have a few great wrestlers who are on the fringes of each division, but striking has become what most MMA fighters lean on.

you start to weed out the top contenders from the not so well-rounded once a fighter moves up the rankings.
 
It's a good base for MMA it's a good base for life.

A decent high school wrestling program can turn a bum into a promising young man. Or woman. They're doing it now too. Wasn't happening when I was coming up, but it's good for them too.

If I had a daughter I'd encourage it as well.

Rogan is obvious here but he's right. You can't strike if the other guy can put you on your back with a shot you dont know how to defend
 
It's a great base, teaches you to cut weight, etc...

But your mileage may vary. Cookie cutter generalizations rarely work in MMA.
 
I would agree wrestling is the best base for MMA, but a great striker, ie A. Silva, McGregor, Liddell have slept many great wrestlers.

Liddel beat Couture
McGregor beat Mendes
Silva beat Henderson

Khabib seems like an anomaly as his wrestling is so advanced. Other than Khabib, no UFC champion relies on wrestling to win.
 
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